The Other-Worldly View
(This is the second of a series of blogs on Carmelite Prayer and Spirituality. To examine the rest, go to the Tab on Carmelite spirituality at the top.)
My family was very serious about being Catholic. I bought into the program. One of the early problems I had in this commitment was in our parish church.
There was an arch over the sanctuary. On this arch was a large painting of what I thought was a bar-b-que pit. Our patron saint, the martyr St. Laurence, was the bar-b-que wrapped up in flames. This really spooked me out, since I was taught that St. Laurence truly was a good Catholic.
At the age of eighteen I entered the Carmelites. A year later, I began the novitiate where the chapel held another challenge. On the walls were little sayings from Carmelite saints of how wonderful it was to suffer. One, in particular, shook me up: it is better to suffer than to die! Then there was a picture of St. Teresa with a burning arrow piercing her heart. This led me to long for the baseball game after lunch.
These experiences were expressions of the problems of the spirituality of my pre-Vatican II upbringing. We were being called out of life to the spiritual. We separated God from life. This was a disastrous division. The need to be spiritual and prayerful was truly an invitation to withdraw from ordinary human experience.
Over time, and with the insights of Vatican II, I learned this approach of otherworldliness was totally contradictory to Teresa’s message. Teresa’s message is: Get real! We are, in fact, called to pray our way into life. The real problem for us is determining what the true life is. Most often, this call to reality becomes clearer in Teresa’s reoccurring theme to keep our eye s fixed on Jesus.
In the Carmelite tradition, personal purification and transformation are fundamental. The purpose is to clarify and assist every human being in their true destiny: union with God. A major part of this transformation is the elimination of the false consciousness that clouds and deceives all human experience. Jesus is calling us out of this darkness into a new light. For Teresa, this is the journey from the unreal to the real. Deep personal prayer is the way forward. Prayer is the measure used to judge the authenticity of all human experience. Prayer helps us discern God’s self-disclosure, drawing us into the life of God, who dwells in our deepest center.
A fish in water offers a good example. It is impossible for the fish to see how water surrounds its reality. The fish has no platform to step outside the water to understand the water’s dominance in the fish’s world. We face a similar problem. The false values created by our society, our culture, and our ego engulf us in a false worldview. For us, however, prayer gives us a platform to withdraw from the enclosed world of our misconceptions. Prayer beckons us to humility and self-knowledge. Prayer is the platform that opens us to liberation from our self-deception and the unreality of our hidden false consciousness. We pass from the bondage of the false consciousness to the real world centered on God.
These insights from Teresa’s message help us see that:
My family was very serious about being Catholic. I bought into the program. One of the early problems I had in this commitment was in our parish church.
There was an arch over the sanctuary. On this arch was a large painting of what I thought was a bar-b-que pit. Our patron saint, the martyr St. Laurence, was the bar-b-que wrapped up in flames. This really spooked me out, since I was taught that St. Laurence truly was a good Catholic.
At the age of eighteen I entered the Carmelites. A year later, I began the novitiate where the chapel held another challenge. On the walls were little sayings from Carmelite saints of how wonderful it was to suffer. One, in particular, shook me up: it is better to suffer than to die! Then there was a picture of St. Teresa with a burning arrow piercing her heart. This led me to long for the baseball game after lunch.
These experiences were expressions of the problems of the spirituality of my pre-Vatican II upbringing. We were being called out of life to the spiritual. We separated God from life. This was a disastrous division. The need to be spiritual and prayerful was truly an invitation to withdraw from ordinary human experience.
Over time, and with the insights of Vatican II, I learned this approach of otherworldliness was totally contradictory to Teresa’s message. Teresa’s message is: Get real! We are, in fact, called to pray our way into life. The real problem for us is determining what the true life is. Most often, this call to reality becomes clearer in Teresa’s reoccurring theme to keep our eye s fixed on Jesus.
In the Carmelite tradition, personal purification and transformation are fundamental. The purpose is to clarify and assist every human being in their true destiny: union with God. A major part of this transformation is the elimination of the false consciousness that clouds and deceives all human experience. Jesus is calling us out of this darkness into a new light. For Teresa, this is the journey from the unreal to the real. Deep personal prayer is the way forward. Prayer is the measure used to judge the authenticity of all human experience. Prayer helps us discern God’s self-disclosure, drawing us into the life of God, who dwells in our deepest center.
The Journey Within
In Teresa’s view, it is the inner life that animates a way of living contrary to the frivolous and meaningless pursuits so common with most people. The movement of true spirituality is from the façade to the inner core. The journey within is the passage into reality.A fish in water offers a good example. It is impossible for the fish to see how water surrounds its reality. The fish has no platform to step outside the water to understand the water’s dominance in the fish’s world. We face a similar problem. The false values created by our society, our culture, and our ego engulf us in a false worldview. For us, however, prayer gives us a platform to withdraw from the enclosed world of our misconceptions. Prayer beckons us to humility and self-knowledge. Prayer is the platform that opens us to liberation from our self-deception and the unreality of our hidden false consciousness. We pass from the bondage of the false consciousness to the real world centered on God.
These insights from Teresa’s message help us see that:
- We are locked into a pervasive set of false values.
- This false consciousness creates a world view that is a gross distortion of reality but a worldview we mistakenly embrace as true.
- Part of this worldview is based on the power of a society that defines us as a consumer.
- We are bound by the deep and hidden prejudices aimed at protecting our economic, political, cultural, gender, social, and racial privileges to the exclusion and deprivation of others.
- The ego is in a relentless struggle to avoid any diminishment of its control of our false consciousness.
- The passage to freedom is to “Get real,” replacing the false values of our culture along with the social and economic self-interests with the values of the gospel.
God’s Program
Our invitation into transformation is God’s program. God loves us first with a love that is always seeking us. Being real opens us to the divine summoning.
What Teresa means when she tells us to get real is that we need to enter the process of personal transformation. We need to be purified to experience love in its truest expression. Only God can offer the real deal when it comes to love. All other authentic love is based on our participation in the divine love.
We need to change a lot of things to accept the consequences of this call to transformation and union. Jesus is God’s invitation for us. Teresa insists that we place our eyes on Jesus, who is God’s continuing invitation to loving intimacy. In this context, we learn that all of life is of concern for us. There is no separation of the holy and the ordinary. Everything that happens can help us or hurt us on this quest for the real that is union with God. Life is the greatest grace. Deep and committed personal prayer is our entry into the mystery of love
What Teresa means when she tells us to get real is that we need to enter the process of personal transformation. We need to be purified to experience love in its truest expression. Only God can offer the real deal when it comes to love. All other authentic love is based on our participation in the divine love.
We need to change a lot of things to accept the consequences of this call to transformation and union. Jesus is God’s invitation for us. Teresa insists that we place our eyes on Jesus, who is God’s continuing invitation to loving intimacy. In this context, we learn that all of life is of concern for us. There is no separation of the holy and the ordinary. Everything that happens can help us or hurt us on this quest for the real that is union with God. Life is the greatest grace. Deep and committed personal prayer is our entry into the mystery of love
CONCLUSION
The human heart is made for love. In one way or another, it will achieve this goal by being one with God. The story of salvation tells us Jesus is calling us to follow him into the mystery of love.For better or for worst, we are going to be purified from the consequences of sin flowing from the failure of our first parents and our personal failures. This purification leading to transformation will happen. It is our choice: this life or the next life after death.
Deep personal prayer is the opportunity God gives us to become free. Deep personal prayer is the call to choose life not death. Deep personal prayer is the invitation of “get real.” Deep personal prayer is the treasure that draws us into the kingdom. Deep personal prayer draws us out of darkness and isolation to a path of justice and peace and the integrity of creation. Deep personal prayer is a call to live in true love by walking with Jesus.
The Carmelite tradition of prayer and spirituality has been an invitation into this search for love through prayer for over eight hundred years. The following fourteen short reflections will be an overture into this treasure in our church.
